Footie Moments of 2006
You might imagine that an England and Leeds fan wouldn’t have much to remember from 2006, but I suppose I’m an inveterate optimist – and a footie fan for life. So, yes, there were downs but also plenty of ups too. Here are some of them:
Game of the Year – The Cup Final (Liverpool vs. West Ham) With the F.A. Cup 3rd round coming up this weekend, it’s important to remember why the Cup is so magical. This final had everything and gave England fans hope that Stevie G. would lead us to World Cup glory.
Goal of the Year – Cambiasso’s goal (Argentina’s second in a 6-0 drubbing of Serbia) in Argentina’s second group match. It was the culmination of a 24-pass move and reinforced the view in most peoples’ minds that they were the best team in the tournament. Check out the goal courtesy of You Tube above.
Player of the Year – Italy’s Fabio Cannavaro; led a quite ordinary Italian side to the World Cup championship. It’s high time that central defenders got their fair dues.
Team of the Year – Barcelona; with injuries to Eto’o and Messi, they’ve dropped off a bit in the past six months, but when they have their full side together, there’s no one that can touch them.
Best Moment – Beckham’s goal against Ecuador; after sixty minutes of tension, it was a tremendous release to finally feel that England were through to the quarters.
Worst Moment – Leeds’s loss to Watford in the Play-off Final. Our tactics were abysmal; we set out to frustrate rather than take the match to Watford and they handed us our heads. The loss was worth about £20 million.
Funniest Moment – The “three-yellow card” incident courtesy of Graham Poll in the Aussie vs. Croatia match. Priceless!
Hope for 2007 – Fairly obvious; survival for Leeds United. But if we happen to fall into the Coca Cola Division One, so be it. I’ll follow the Whites into hell if need be.
Special Mention: Lakenheath Old Boys – my enjoyment of the game has been profoundly changed by the live blogging on LOB. Hats off to all of you who’ve taken part in our experiment. Long may it reign!
posted by gatorbob @ 1:19 PM
6 Comments:
Yeah, but I reckon that the Hammers will survive whereas my boys are just about doomed. The win yesterday helped boost morale, but we're still second bottom and three points from safety. You lot are third bottom despite the hammering yesterday and you've got lots of bad sides right around you. My favorites for the drop are still Sheffield United.
C'mon Johnno, faith boy. That was a one off. But getting something out of your Argies is a must. Mascherano caught my eye big time this summer and Tevez should be as lethal in the claret as he's been for every other club. And keeping Benayoun fit is a must too.
I read that Ashton's had a setback which is too bad. But otherwise, you should be able to shake this bad form and put the pressure on the Goblin Horde like Bob suggests.
And by the way, Wigan are looking a bit shocking as well.
Goal of the Year and Best Moment of the year -- Cambiasso's goal after all those touches in the build-up. Yes, it was a relief when England got through on Beckham's goal, but that is the most memorable goal since Albertos.
Biggest Relief of the Year -- Riquelme not converting a penalty to send Arsenal out at the semi-final stage of the CL and me not having to swallow all of that stuff I said about Riquelme being a bottler and a bottle-neck. He's pants, and you know it.
Worst Moment of the year -- Barcelona finally breaking through 10 man Arsenal in the final. That's tied that with another miserable elimination on penalties by those cheating Portugeezers, led by the completely odious Skippy. He's not paid the piper his due and at the rate he's going, it's going to be a hell of a debt.
Funniest Moment -- Yes, Graham Poll, but also spare a moment for Vladimir Ivanov the Russian ref. Holland and Portugal both end up with 9 men on the field, just about everyone else on yellows, and the TV catches Van Bronkhorst and Deco, teammates at Barca sitting together at the entrance to the tunnel comparing notes on whether anything was ever as ridiculous. What a shower!
Also, squirrel on the pitch during the CL at Highbury.
Hope for 2007. Steady the ship at the Emirates and secure 2nd or 3rd place. By steady the ship I mean get Henry back to his best form, finish more of those sitters, get Baptista settled in the Prem or get Diaby back fit, and just get the boys back to believing in themselves. See Chelsea drop to 4th, and then in the summer watch how they start eating themselves. Watch Maureenyo bugger off to Real or Milan or some other nest of snakes and finally show the footballing world that this empiror has no clothes. Fire Sunil Gulati and repair broken fences with Klinsmann for the US job.
And save West Ham and Leeds from respective drops so we'll have something to blog about next year.
The Hammers need to ship the Argies on the first boat back to Buenos Aires IMHO. Their presence has completely disrupted the set-up at Upton Park. Let's be honest, what West Ham (and Leeds for that matter) need in their present circumstances is some old fashioned slogging. That's not Tevez's forte.
I can't agree with this. I don't know that the team that the Hammers send out can turn themselves into battlers that can beat the teams that only have hard-graft to fall back on--Reading, Wigan, The Goblin Horde, etc.
But if Tevez gets some support from the midfield and especially the classy Benyaoun and Reo-Coker and Etherington, he can get back to his stock-in-trade of just rrrrrriping defenders apart. When he's on fire, he plays with the kind of passion not seen since Mike Tyson was a 21-year-old.
As for Mascherino, I keep thinking that given the chance, he'd be able to reprise the role he played for the Argies this summer. He's strong and talented and was only reason that waster Riquelme looked good in the few seconds of form he showed.
I don't see how you can repair the damage done to the morale within the West Ham camp by a deal that stank to high heaven of a manipulation by big money men. The squad rightly perceived that Chelski were attempting to turn the Hammers into a feeder club and simply refused to play with the Argies. I don't see that changing in the new year. The only solution is to ship them out; there's plenty of quality left in the side. The problem for the Hammers isn't going forward - it's that when things start going wrong, they completely fold, a situation I'm more than familiar with.
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